Thoughts on 9/11

[Y]

Someone asked...

Anyone interested in sharing where they were on 9/11 and their reactions?

...and I responded.

I.

1)  I was in class at college (for those that wonder, I went back to school in my fifth decade).

2)  As I recall, I assumed it was another attack on the WTC since it had previously been the focal point of terrorists.

3)  I wanted to know a) how the authorities charged with overseeing flights and their security didn't appear to know what was going on and how many planes they'd lost track of; b) how the hijackers managed to commandeer the planes - especially since plane hijackings had become relatively commonplace since the 60's; c) why - especially after the first plane flew into the WTC - that the rest weren't forced, or shot, down before they struck the WTC again and the Pentagon (I still applaud the passengers of flight 93 who took matters into their own hands after the authorities had failed them - their concern for others a monument for their sacrifice).

II.

Now some observations about then and now (here's where I'll prolly make everyone mad).

I still lay the blame at the feet of Bush, his administration, and bureaucrats who all abdicated their primary responsibility to the nation and its citizens.

1) Bush for a) not taking the warnings he was given seriously; b) being impotent and inactive in the face of a national emergency - and that's even giving him the benefit of the doubt for the first plane flown into the WTC.

2)  Bush's administration for their inability to respond immediately to a national emergency - the primary responsibility every administration is charged with and should be prepared to meet upon taking the reins of power.

3)  The bureaucrats - from the NSA, Pentagon, CIA, on down to the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies - who were more concerned with their own personal fiefdoms and power to coordinate the information and investigations which should have nipped the plot in the bud.

III.

Today on the 10th year since the hijackings, the memorializing should not allow your emotions to shut down your brains - and that is what I think it is designed to do now just as the furor was designed to do 10 years ago.  That emotion over intellect got us involved into never-ending war, and now intends to keep us involved as long as America's collective emotions can be stirred against logic.

This country can't step away from its culpability in creating the mindset behind the 9/11 terrorists and goading them into action with the interventionist foreign policy our government has pursued in our name and with our blessing over the past century.  America can't meddle in other country's affairs and not expect at least a percentage of their populace to resent it enough to do something about if they can.  To understand it, all you have to do is consider how Americans would react if another country was contravening in our affairs - hell, we've fought wars over that very thing, why should other peoples of the world be any different?

The loss of our citizen's lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing never-ending war is grievous to America, as it should be, but no more grievous than the loss of lives experienced by other countries as a direct result of our interventionist foreign policy - no matter how we cloak it under the guise of a 'just' revenge and spreading 'freedom'.

The emotionalism of today should also not blind us to the consequences our 'just' revenge and spreading 'freedom' has visited upon our country and our fellow citizens - all the way from moving towards a more authoritarian country with the resulting loss of liberty and privacy and the economic consequences of the resulting costs of enforcement and never-ending war, to the personal costs of suspicion of our fellow citizens and the abuse suffered by those fighting that never-ending war and their families.

When is enough, enough?  When will we stop being blinded by emotion and allowing a self-centered ideology run this country to ruins, and get to keeping our nose only in our business and run this country for ALL its citizens.

Blind emotion is dangerous and an anathema to a democratic country.

[Y]

Here is an excerpt from an article I read today that explores similar lines of thought:

http://www.truth-out.org/children-aftermath/1315597025

The Children of Aftermath

by: William Rivers Pitt

All across America, there are classrooms filled with fifth graders who only know the World Trade Center from pictures. They have achieved the final perfection of George Orwell's vision - we have always been at war with Eurasia - because they have never known a world where their country has not been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. As with the Towers, some of these children only know a parent from pictures, because that parent was killed in those wars. They know what anthrax is, what an IED is, what WMD stands for. They know about fear, for it was fed to them, literally, with mother's milk. For them, it has always been this way.

These children have never known a country that was not in an economic recession, for their country's economy has been tottering on its feet like a punch-drunk prizefighter for the last ten years. Theirs is a country that has always tapped phones in secret, always imprisoned people without trial or due process of law, always tortured, always lived in a cocoon of fear and hatred that serves to justify virtually any act, no matter how barbarous or criminal or wrong. Politicians, in their world, have always used threats of terrorism to frighten, to control, to change the subject, to win elections, and to make money for themselves and their friends. There are no consequences for such vicious acts. For these children, it has always been this way.

They know about barbecues and baseball games, because those are still here. They know about video games and the internet, about skinned knees and summer vacation, but they also know so many savage things the rest of us consider "new," things that didn't exist ten years ago which are terrible and strange to us. For them, it has always been this way, and if the rest of us are not very careful, very vigilant, and very active, it will always be this way.

What will become of these children as they quest into adolescence and then adulthood? Theirs is a world formed by the implication of imminent violence that could strike at any moment, violence that might be hiding in a car, in a backpack worn by a stranger, in an unattended bag on a street corner, in an airplane tracing white contrails across the sky. Are these children being taught to know a lie when they hear it, or will they only grow to know how to march in locked step to the beat of whichever drummer has the largest microphone and the fattest bankroll?...